...let me push back a little against Eliot's unipolar thesis: No art can embrace all traditions, and I think Rothko's canvases which ask the observer to think about the enormity of infinity serve as a primary example of this. He isn't embracing abstract expressionism with those solid colors sometimes in perfect halves.
You need tradition, however, to get the full impact of what he is doing with those black and green and orange rectangles.
Of course no artist can embrace the whole of the tradition... even less so than the mere art-lover who does not have as much at stake. Rothko certainly was not embracing the "tradition" of Abstract Expressionism as he was one of the central figures inventing that very tradition. He echoes Pollack's "field painting" composition... but not his gestural mark-making that owe to Rubens, Van Gogh, Soutine, and Asian calligraphy. Rothko is more rooted in the atmospheric tradition of the sublime landscape:
...Ralph Blakelock:
...John Atkinson Grimshaw:
...Caspar David Friederich:
...to say nothing of the touch and color of Bonnard:
...are clear precursors and influences upon Rothko:
Rothko was of his time... but he was also rooted in the past and whether his work last or not will depend upon how well he holds up in comparison... in contrast within this tradition. Personally... I find him an especially powerful and meditative artist... one that must be experienced in person.
One can be aware of tradition in reading Charles too, but it only makes Charles himself sound the worse for wear...
That... of course... has been my argument. He pales before Ginsberg and the best of the confessional poets (to whom he is deeply indebted)... to say nothing of Whitman or Baudelaire or Villon or many others with whom he shares certain elements.
...she at least recognizes that even a caustic, sardonic voice needs a poetic cadence.
Of course... and I recognize the problem in my own discipline. There are any number of artists... even older artists who no longer have inexperience to blame... who have a dual fear of "beauty" (and I do not limit this to cute babies, flowers, and pretty girls) and embrace ugliness believing that it bears honesty and a earthy truth. It's the same sort of Romanticism that led to the embrace of the "other"... the African or the Arab or the Native American, or the mentally ill, or the child with the notion that these were all far more in touch with feelings and what is truly important. Such Romanticism naively underestimates the sophistication of the traditions of others... and overstates the merits of the untutored artist. Yes, a child's art and the art of the schizophrenic may be closer to real feelings... but art is not reality. Art transforms reality. Again I think of our earlier discussion of "honesty" in art and Mortalterror's pointing out of Oscar Wilde's aphorism that all bad art is completely sincere. But then again... I even doubt Bukowski's sincerity. It seems too much about posturing to me.
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